The No-Show — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Beth O’Leary
Published Year: 2022
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 352

I received a copy of this in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this book.

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth.

These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: They've all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up--Valentine's Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they've all been stood up by the same man.

Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they let him back into their lives and are in serious danger of falling in love with a man who seems to have not just one or two but three women on the go....

Is there more to him than meets the eye? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?

First Impression

Beth O’Leary is one of my auto-read authors. I loved her first and third books, The Flatshare and Road Trip. I had actually pre-ordered this book before I was offered the chance to read it for review so when I got that offer to read it early I was ecstatic. The cover is a pretty soft pink with a bit of chaos that I was drawn to. The summary also sounded intriguing.

What I thought

This book was the definition of a slow burn and was a bit of a roller coaster that ended up taking me by surprise.

Siobhan, Miranda, and Jane all get stood up on Valentine’s Day by the same man. When confronted with standing them up, Joseph Carter doesn’t have a good excuse to give, but for some reason they all forgive him.

Jane was definitely my favorite of the three women. I liked the mystery to her storyline and that she was a bit awkward and uncomfortable and was working towards finding herself. Miranda was also great with her strong personality and independence. She is a tree surgeon and one of few in the UK. Finally, there’s Siobhan. She took the longest to grow on me as an Influencer and life coach.

I don’t know if it was because I was reading this book at the same time as another or if it was the way the story played out, but it took me until I was about 50-60% of the way through to really get into it. That was the point where I started to figure out what was truly going on. It was hard to understand what all of these women were in love with Joseph which I think contributed to part of the difficulty I had getting into this story.

Once the book did start to pick up steam I did fly through it. There are some wonderful storylines and lessons in this book that really resonated with me and I hope that people give this book a full chance. Each of the characters in the story have their struggles and O’Leary writes them so well.